European authorities arrested seven suspects and seized more than 100 servers in a joint action against an unnamed company suspected of supplying fraudulent trading websites to criminal gangs, BleepingComputer reports from Europol’s announcement. Europol and Eurojust supported the action, which involved authorities from Albania, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Kosovo and North Macedonia. It followed a four-year investigation with earlier interventions in 2022 and 2025.
The investigation began in 2022 when a German couple reported they could not withdraw money invested through an online trading platform. Investigators linked multiple call centers to potential victims in at least 50 countries. Europol says the company allegedly ran a “crime-as-a-service” model from Cyprus and Israel, and that suspected clients operated fraudulent call centers in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia. According to BleepingComputer’s summary, deceptive ads steered people to fake investment platforms and captured their personal data; that data was then sold to call centers whose operators phoned with supposed opportunities, asked for a small first transfer and showed fake accounts with fictitious profits to push larger transfers. When victims tried to withdraw, the scammers stalled and then cut contact.